Masaccio

Timeline

1. 1401–1422San Giovanni Valdarno and Florence · FlorenceMasaccio was born at San Giovanni in the Arno Valley (today San Giovanni Valdarno) and later moved to Florence. In 1422 he joined the Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries, and the same year completed the San Giovenale Triptych at Reggello, already showing his reinterpretation of the Giotto tradition and his attention to volume and light; it is regarded as his earliest surviving work.
2. c. 1424–1428Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence · FlorenceAround 1424 he collaborated with Masolino on the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne (Uffizi) and began decorating the Saint Peter cycle in the Brancacci Chapel. After Masolino left for Hungary, Masaccio proceeded independently with scenes such as the Tribute Money, the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the Healing of the Blind Man, revolutionizing religious narrative with unified lighting, sculptural figures, and perspectival space; the project was interrupted by his departure for Rome.
3. 1426–1427Pisa and Santa Maria Novella, Florence · TuscanyIn 1426 he produced a polyptych altarpiece for the Carmine church in Pisa (later dismantled, with parts now in the National Gallery in London, Capodimonte in Naples, and elsewhere). Around 1427 he painted the Trinity in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, constructing a Brunelleschian arched space with a single vanishing point, becoming a model for the entry of linear perspective into monumental painting.
4. 1428Rome · RomeIn 1428 Masaccio went to Rome, possibly continuing collaboration with Masolino at San Clemente and elsewhere, though attribution of specific works remains disputed. He died in Rome the same year, aged about twenty-six or twenty-seven. The perspective, volume, and moral gravity of his brief career became the starting point of fifteenth-century Florentine painting.